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Abstract

Confluence of orthogonal rewriting systems can be proved using the Finite Developments Theorem. We present, in a general setting, several adaptations of this proof method for obtaining confluence of `not quite' orthogonal systems. 1. Introduction Rewriting as studied here is based on the analogy: rewriting = substitution + rules. This analogy is useful since it enables a clearcut distinction between the `designer' defined substition process, i.e. management of resources, and the `user' defined rewrite rules, of rewriting systems. For example, application of the `user' defined term rewriting rule 2 \Theta x ! x + x to the term 2 \Theta 3 gives rise to the duplication of the term 3 in the result 3 + 3. How this duplication is actually performed (for example, using sharing) depends on the `designer's' implementation of substitution. This decomposition has been shown useful in [OR94, Oos94] in the case of first-order term rewriting systems (TRSs, [DJ90, Klo92]) and higher-order term r...